Losing sense of fairness: How information about a level playing field reduces selfish behavior

Kajsa Hansson, Emil Persson, Shai Davidai and Gustav Tinghög

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 190, issue C, 66-75

Abstract: Inaccurate beliefs about procedural fairness often motivate people to act in self-serving and selfish manners. We investigate whether information about a level playing field might mitigate such behaviors. In a pre-registered behavioral experiment (n = 444), using a competitive and real-effort task, we manipulate whether participants are informed about the fairness of a competition or not. Following the competition, participants (who either won or lost the competition) decided how to distribute earnings between themselves and their opponent. We show that informing participants about the fairness of the competition reduces selfish behavior among losers, while behavior among winners remains unaffected. Moreover, we show that losers who were not informed about the fairness of the competition incorrectly viewed it as having been unfairly stacked against them (i.e., believing that they encountered significantly more difficult tasks than their opponents). Our findings suggest that information about a level playing field reduces selfish behavior and is important for understanding when and why motivated reasoning about procedural fairness helps people uphold a positive self-image.

Keywords: Procedural fairness; Headwinds; Selfish behavior; Unethical behavior; Motivated reasoning; Pre-registered experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:190:y:2021:i:c:p:66-75

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.07.014

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